Suchergebnisse

AbstractAre countries in the Middle East characterized by comparatively distinctive, domestic‐level attributes that justify the recent years' intensification of identity conflict in the region? The article presents descriptive statistics showing, first, that the Middle East is the only region in the world where religious (including sectarian) affiliation is the predominant identity marker determining group membership and, second, that people in the Middle East, on average, are twice as likely as people in other developing regions to belong to identity groups excluded from legitimate political representation. The article discusses these empirical trends based on the literature on ethnicity (defined broadly to include language, 'race', religion, and other cultural attributes) and ethnic conflict. The discussion suggests that the comparatively high level of identity‐based political inequality in the region provides a better explanation for the intensity of the conflict than does the predominance of religious identity divides.

AbstractIn the 1950s, the Sociedad de Escritores de Chile experienced bitter disputes caused by the efforts of the Chilean Committee for Cultural Freedom, the local branch of a major institution in the US cultural Cold War, to gain control of the association. These disputes reveal the role played by the cultural Cold War in the breakdown of older political and intellectual alliances in Chile. They also highlight the transnational networks that connected Chilean writers during the Cold War, and the complex articulation of local and international contexts and agendas that influenced Chilean cultural and political groups.